Recently, touchscreens have been widely used in place of keyboards, and are configured to enable input to be directly made on a screen so that when a user's finger or an object touches a character or a specific location on the screen, the location of the touch is sensed and then specific processing corresponding to the sensed location of the touch is performed using installed software.
Such touchscreens can display characters or picture information corresponding to functions in various manners, thus allowing users to easily perceive the functions.
For this reason, touchscreens have been applied to and variously used for devices for guidance, point-of-sale (POS) terminals for stores, devices for typical business purposes, etc. in various places such as subway stations, department stores, and banks.
A conventional touchscreen apparatus is formed by attaching a touch panel to the screen of a monitor, and operates such that when a fingertip or an object touches a predetermined region, user input is sensed by sensing the variation in the characteristics of the predetermined region.
In other words, the entire conventional touchscreen is divided into two-dimensional grids and analyzes the location of a touch.
The touchscreen is based on an interface scheme in which touches are sensed using capacitance, ultrasonic waves, infrared rays, a resistive film, sound wave recognition, or the like.
That is, since the conventional touchscreen is configured in a two-dimensional form in which a display screen and a touch panel are arranged on the same plane, there is a limitation in providing various user interfaces.